Blake Scholl on Supersonic Flight and the Turbines That Could Fund It

Boom founder Blake Scholl recalls the moment its proposed supersonic engine partnership began to fall apart. The company had been close to a deal with Rolls-Royce; when leadership changed there, a long period of waiting followed.

Scholl says the original plan had been to adapt an existing Rolls-Royce engine. The appeal was obvious: Boom would not have to create every part of a complex propulsion system itself. Yet a supplier’s priorities could change in ways outside the startup’s control.

According to Scholl, Rolls-Royce’s new management did not continue the earlier agreement. He describes a handshake to maintain appearances while Boom looked for alternatives. The account is his recollection of the negotiation, not a statement from Rolls-Royce.

Boom had secured airline interest, including an American Airlines preorder following United’s. Scholl says the supplier’s public withdrawal caught the company by surprise and complicated the search for another engine partner.

Looking back, Scholl thinks dependence on an outside engine maker was a strategic mistake. He also argues that the engine under consideration would have made a later goal—flying supersonically without a boom reaching the ground—harder to achieve.

Boom found experienced supersonic engine engineers in Florida, including people who had worked at Pratt & Whitney. Their expertise helped the company assess whether it could organize its own engine program and enlist specialist partners.

Scholl recalls advice from Brian Chesky during the crisis: return to the original ideal instead of making the ambition smaller. For Boom, that meant taking responsibility for an engine tailored to the aircraft rather than merely finding a substitute supplier.

The discussion turns to the physics of boomless cruise. Scholl explains that atmospheric conditions can bend a shock wave upward, preventing it from reaching the ground at certain altitudes and speeds near the speed of sound.

He says Boom’s XB-1 flight testing and simulations gave the team confidence to explore the idea for Overture. The commercial aircraft and its optimized performance remain plans; the prediction is not proof that a passenger service can already fly that way.

To benefit from that window, an airplane needs to perform efficiently around the transonic region, not just at its maximum design speed. Engine and airframe choices therefore have to be considered together.

The engine program also opened a second business possibility. Scholl says his engineers had observed that the core of a jet engine resembles an industrial power turbine; the rising demand for electricity from AI data centers made that comparison commercially interesting.

He describes conversations in 2025 about whether Boom could adapt the technology to produce electricity. Rather than powering a fan for flight, a stationary machine would drive a generator.

Scholl discusses a projected unit of roughly 42 megawatts, based on an engine in the 40,000-pound-thrust class. The figures describe the proposed product, not measured output from a completed commercial installation.

He suggests that roughly two dozen such units could supply a gigawatt, with additional capacity for redundancy. Modular machines could let an operator service one unit without shutting down the entire installation, although the economics and delivery remain to be demonstrated.

The company raised funding around the end of 2025 for the turbine opportunity. Scholl hopes power-generation revenue will eventually support the much more capital-intensive airplane program; neither the timing nor the revenue is guaranteed.

The hosts ask what makes financing hard technology different. Scholl says building aircraft and engines requires major commitments before a company can show the kind of revenue or product traction software investors may expect.

He describes earlier periods of working from paycheck to paycheck as a company, with fundraising pressure slowing long-term decisions. Larger, better-timed commitments could allow teams to invest in engineering instead of constantly managing the next financing milestone.

Scholl sees the turbine as a way to fund the larger mission, not a replacement for it. His ambition remains an economically viable supersonic passenger airplane.

The conversation broadens to energy and infrastructure. Scholl argues that electricity supply and regulation have not kept pace with technological ambition. His account includes speculation about political and incumbent-industry incentives, which he acknowledges he cannot establish conclusively.

He contrasts the pace of innovation he wants with long-lived industrial designs and asks why infrastructure projects take so long. His criticism is an argument about incentives and institutions, not evidence that any single rule explains every delay.

Scholl describes redesigning the aircraft cabin for passengers. A change that improved the shape of the interior initially appeared to cost around 1,000 miles of a 4,000-mile range target—a serious trade-off for the planned routes.

Rather than simply accepting the loss, the team used its internal MakeBoom simulator to examine engine and aircraft combinations across complete flights. Scholl says engineers compared about a dozen engine designs and found changes that recovered most of the lost range in their models.

The example illustrates his preferred design process: begin with the experience passengers need, expose the engineering cost, then iterate across disciplines. The predicted range improvement still depends on later engineering and testing.

Scholl compares this work to early iPhone development, where teams revised hardware and software together rather than treating each component as fixed. He argues that ambitious products benefit when teams can revisit assumptions across the whole system.

The planned passenger experience includes no middle seats, simpler surfaces that are easier to keep clean, and fast boarding. Scholl also discusses built-in Starlink connectivity. These are design goals for a future aircraft, not features passengers can use today.

The conversation returns to how teams measure progress. Scholl argues that metrics should reflect the actual outcome a product needs, rather than allowing organizations to optimize a proxy while losing sight of the mission.

He also criticizes aspects of aerospace regulation and procurement, and discusses the difficulty of making new flight concepts fit existing rules. These are his views about policy and institutional incentives; regulatory approval for any future operation remains a separate question.

Scholl compares the prestige and public funding behind Apollo and Concorde with his goal of a lasting commercial market. In his view, a product people repeatedly choose and pay for can sustain progress beyond a single demonstration.

He argues that commercial aerospace manufacturing could also strengthen the industrial base available for defense. He wants suppliers and production systems that can respond quickly to changing requirements, rather than treating speed as an afterthought.

Digital design and manufacturing are part of that vision. Scholl describes an aspiration to move from a component design to production much faster, including a roughly 24-hour turnaround target for some parts. That is an operational ambition, not a demonstrated capability for every component.

Despite the obstacles, Scholl says he is optimistic about the next generation of aerospace engineers. The first XB-1 flight and the children who watched it reminded him that a visible demonstration can inspire people to enter the field.

He closes by returning to the larger ambition: make faster travel useful and accessible enough to support a durable business, while giving engineers a reason to keep building.